


calculated losses

by fogsrollingin



Series: Sam Whumpchester 🎃 Whumptober 2020 [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcoholic Dean Winchester, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Codependent Winchesters (Supernatural), Demon Blood Addict Sam Winchester, Flat Affect Sam Winchester, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hypothermia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV Dean Winchester, Resurrection, Season/Series 05, Secrets, Whump, Withdrawal, for the greater good, gencest, hypothermic sam winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26800498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fogsrollingin/pseuds/fogsrollingin
Summary: Dean shared a look of suppressed alarm with his brother. Hunters were pretty bad mama-jamas. For a hunter to hire a merc was nearly unheard of.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Sam Whumpchester 🎃 Whumptober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947565
Comments: 58
Kudos: 128
Collections: Sam Winchester WHUMP, Whumptober 2020





	1. Held at Gunpoint

**Author's Note:**

> My 3rd entry for Whumptober 2020! Prompt filled is no 3. “held at gunpoint.” This is the first of a three-chapter story (each chapter after this will be another fill 😱😊)
> 
> [Tumblr link.](https://fogsrollingin.tumblr.com/post/630991525780848640/title-calculated-losses-author-fogsrollingin)
> 
> [Fanfiction.net link](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13728013/1/calculated-losses)

They were in a tiny grocery store staffed by precisely one cashier and one stock boy. Ambushed in a _teeny_ tiny grocery store in a damn one-horse town just off the interstate.

Dean was disgusted.

He'd been teasing Sam, warning him away from the bodega sushi and preparing to stop Sam from petting the bodega cat too when a frazzled man dressed in tatters burst in, babbling Russian to the cashier until he got behind the counter. Before they even knew it he'd gotten the cashier in a headlock. The cashier struggled for a few moments and went limp. The Russian let him down to the floor gently.

"Hey," Dean shouted. He didn't have a plan but whatever.

"Dean," Sam admonished. Dean shrugged. He figured if the man was armed he would've used it on the cashier, and Dean could take pretty much anyone in hand-to-hand.

The Russian looked up, expression sharp and calculating, and immediately pulled a gun on them.

"Shit," Dean drawled, raising his hands up with Sam. The Russian's eyes were hard, his aim steady and true. Dean tilted his head and took stock of him again. This man had real experience behind him. Initially Dean had written him off as homeless, his form bulky because living in the elements required insulation. Now he could see the guy was packing though, and the raggedy layers were a great cover. Dean's lingering hopes he could negotiate with an addled bodega robber dwindled to nothing as he realized this guy was not at all an addled bodega robber.

Before he could figure out how he _did_ want to play this, the man spoke with a completely normal American accent. "You two, move to the back."

"You're not Russian either. Great," Dean muttered bitterly.

"I said NOW."

Dean saw Sam flinch out of the corner of his eye. He wasn't doing too well lately. Dean felt he was missing something crucial but he'd been putting off any heart-to-hearts hoping Sam would come to him on his own. Or maybe hoping he wouldn't, that he could handle it so well that Dean wouldn't even have to know about it.

Depending on the day and his mood, Dean felt either spiteful or guilty about how he was handling Sam. Neither of those feelings really galvanized him to change things as they were though and so Sam would flinch when he didn't used to, or he'd forget to eat, or he'd pop pills when he didn't think Dean was watching. Dean had investigated the last one two weeks ago. He'd found both uppers and downers, indicating his younger brother was heavily regulating his, uh, energy. Dean had no idea what to do with the information. Sam wasn't off his game, and it's not like Dean could call him on it when he himself was a functioning alcoholic at this point. So Sam could be a functioning pill-popper. Whatever.

They shuffled to the back where the American-Russian had ordered them. The one remaining employee rushed out, the stock boy. "Hey sorry, you're not allowed back here." He stopped, taking in their faces and the gunman fast approaching. He gave a strangled yelp as the man cold-cocked him. He crumpled to the floor.

The man looked up at the brothers, motioning with his gun for them to step over him. "The back." His voice was low, deadly.

They got through the double acting doors. The noise of processing and maintenance machinery increased.

"Stop. Turn around."

The brothers did as they were told, hands still in the air.

"You a hunter?" Dean asked.

"No," the man replied. "But I was hired by one."

Dean shared a look of suppressed alarm with his brother. Hunters were pretty bad mama-jamas. For a hunter to hire a merc was nearly unheard of.

"My name is Lucas."

"Lucas, what if I told you we'll double your pay for this?"

Lucas scoffed. "I'd say 'with what money?' Now on your knees, hands stay up."

The brothers did as they were told. Sam got down first, uncharacteristically spacing himself away from Dean. Dean shot him an inquiring look but Sam ignored it. He kept steely eyes on the gunman.

Dean bit his lip. He'd long since stopped putting himself in front of Sam when faced with death down the barrel of a gun, but now when it happened they always remained in tight formation if they could manage it. Dean needed Sam close, needed to be able to grab him, cover him if things went wrong. Sam probably felt the same way. Or, at least he thought he did.

Offput, Dean adjusted his stance and knelt so he was right up next to his little brother. Sam shot him a rueful smile he couldn’t really decipher.

“You two started the apocalypse," Lucas announced. The brothers looked up to see the merc had pulled out a really nice cell phone. He spoke to them while looking at its screen; he was recording video. "Lucifer now walks the earth. Do you deny it?”

Dean huffed. “Well when you put it like that-”

“No. We don’t. Just shoot us and get it over with,” Sam waved dismissively

Dean nearly cricked his neck to stare at his brother, incredulous. Even Lucas blinked, surprised, tilted his head past the edge of the phone to look directly at him.

“Sam.” Dean rasped.

Sam clenched his jaw but didn’t look at him. Dean frowned, increasingly irritated because Sam was starting to scare him.

He made a call and feigned laughter. “Sam's just kidding. He’s, um, stressed," Dean said lamely. "Do _not_ execute us. How ‘bout that, Lucas?”

Sam just continued to eye the hunter. Lucas stared back. He shifted his weight, unsettled, looking between them.

"What is this?" Lucas asked, casually gesturing with his gun between the two of them, "One dares me to shoot, the other begs to live?"

Dean winced, not understanding what they were doing either and hating it. That's when Sam decided to face Dean, his expression solemn and pleading.

“Trust me,” he said, specks of earnest green and hazel boring into Dean, telling him he knew something Dean didn’t.

Dean pressed his lips together. He was frustrated but he wouldn't show it with Lucas. But he wanted to _know_ , wanted to shout at Sam and demand some damned answers now. For fuck's sake, Dean thought they’d had enough with secrets. Or at least the big "it's okay if we die" kind, at least. Dean swore and spat on the ground.

Sam turned back quickly. “Do it,” he said, almost like a dare, and just as Dean looked up again, he heard Sam scream "no!" A sharp explosive _pop!_ and then everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! Cliffhanger! Sorry to do y'all dirty 😈 but promise this fic'll be wrapped up by the end of the month 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoyed, please kudos/comment/what-have-you. 
> 
> Much love, 💛 Alex


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whumptober 2020 prompts filled here are No 9. “For The Greater Good” and No 17. “Dirty Secret”
> 
> [Tumblr link.](https://fogsrollingin.tumblr.com/post/631530113333346304/title-calculated-losses-chapter-2-author)

Dean woke up freezing, a rancid metal taste in his mouth. He spat as he shakily got his hands on the cold floor to lift himself up. “Holy... fuck. Sammy?” he blinked, vision cloudy. They were in the walk-in freezer? What the-

“Here.” Sam’s voice was dull, low but close. Dean startled and turned, saw his brother lying against the wall, knees up, elbows balanced on them, hands flexing. “You okay?” He asked.

“Yeah. What happened? You take him out?”

“Nope,” Sam said with a pop on the ‘p.’ He was blinking his eyes slowly.

“Well... what the hell, Sam. Wake up. What happened?”

“We died. We got brought back. We’ll get out when someone comes into the store and calls the cops.” He ticked each sentence off with a finger. Then he pointed at the freezer’s door. "It won't open. I think Lucas got scared we'd resurrect, so blocked it for time to run. The one smart thing he did."

Dean stared at his brother. Sam flinched. "Oh and I'm coming down." He made a click sound with his tongue.

"Pills?"

Sam gave Dean a careful look. Dean didn't waver.

"Not the pills," Sam said heavily. "He had bad intel. Thought demon blood would make me susceptible to the same stuff as demons." Sam's voice was monotone but he'd turned away, unable to look Dean in the eyes as he explained.

Dean swallowed. "How'd he kill you?"

Sam shivered. "It took a few minutes," he whispered.

Dean cringed and nodded. He had to blank out the implications of that if he wanted to think straight.

The cold penetrated his bones as he thought about what he remembered.

"I didn't go... anywhere. After I got shot. Did you?"

Sam sighed, gripped his thin shaking hands and put them between his thighs as he shook his head. His hair had frost on it, probably wet before from Lucas spilling holy water over him. "It's not a requirement when you're marked to be resurrected. We might not have gone anywhere, or we went somewhere and got our memories of it erased." Sam shrugged but it looked more like a shudder.

Dean scooted up next to Sam. "We gotta use our body heat, come on," he urged, pushing his body into Sam's, pulling Sam into him. "Get your back off the wall, Sam, what're you thinking?" He muttered, manhandling Sam so his back lost contact with the freezer wall which was covered in thick frost, and hunched him over his knees more. Sam was in bad shape.

"I'm thinking," Sam's teeth chattered, "it doesn't even matter if we died again in here. We'd just resurrect. Might as well just wait, ignore everything else," Sam trailed off into a trembling whisper.

Dean got up and rubbed Sam's frigid back, his touch probably rougher than it had to be but Sam was saying some bullshit and Dean was channeling his response into it. He pushed Sam's hair up off his neck and knelt over him so he could breathe hot air over the nape. "Stay with me, Sam," he ordered. Sam shook his head. Dean got a hold of his brother's shoulders and gave a sharp jerk. "Sam, rally!"

Sam peered up at him though a curtain of frosty strands of hair. His eyes were bloodshot, he was pale and gaunt, but Dean was startled backwards when he saw the bullet wound. It was bull's eye center of Sammy's forehead, and it was still healing.

Dean felt for his own. Sam shook his head.

"He got you in the heart."

Dean moved his hand, felt the hole in his shirts, looked down to see the black blood in the slowly-closing wound. He heard Sam sigh heavily.

"I think it's the cold. It's making us heal slower." Sam shrugged and it turned into a full body spasm.

"Sam why the hell are you so..." blasé he was going to say but then suddenly he got it. With a sick, certain clarity, Dean knew Sam had been through this before. "Sam?"

"He comes to me in my dreams when I sleep," he informed flatly. He looked up at Dean. "Does yours... does Michael do that to you too? Does he make it cold? Does he impersonate me to you? Or Dad? Maybe Cassie? Use them to try and make you say yes?" Sam looked almost hopeful. If Dean said yes, they could share this pain. If Dean said yes, he'd know what it was like and Sam wouldn't be alone.

"No," Dean whispered.

Sam's eyes shuttered but he nodded. What he said next was toneless but genuine. "There's only a few good things going for us right now. I can count them on my hand. This is one of them though, Dean."

"What, that Lucifer comes to you in your dreams to pressure you to say yes?" Dean spat.

Sam swallowed and shook his head slowly. "That Michael doesn't."

Dean winced and clenched his jaw, thinking and trembling and having enough of this beating around the bush. "How many times have you tried to kill yourself?"

He said it angry and entitled. He said it like Sam was a threat, an enemy intent on destroying his brother.

The dissonance was difficult to process as hypothermia set in. Sam didn't seem fazed by Dean's question or the tone he'd asked it in. He pushed his back up against the freezer wall and hissed with pain. His breaths were coming fast and shallow.

"Lost count. I started trying after I found out. We reconnected. You said, um," Sam's voice broke for the first time today. "You said I'd said yes without you and Dean, that's..." Sam shook his head, brought his fingers up to chew on his nails. "I need to die... I _want_ to die if it means Lucifer never gets me as his vessel. It's for the greater good."

Dean stared at his brother, speechless. Sam's words resonated with him even though he held so much contempt for them.

"We're doing so much to stop it right now Dean but why aren't we just finding a way for one of us to die? Our bloodline dies with us, and then the biblical apocalypse can't happen."

"Sam, no. That's... you're not thinking straight."

"I'm thinking s-strategy," Sam stuttered. He'd stopped shivering, entering the next stage of hypothermia. Dean wouldn't be far behind.

He looked away, shaking his head but still not really knowing what to say.

When he looked back up, Sam's eyes were closed.

"Sam? Sammy?!" He shook his brother and Sam startled, blinking awake. "Fuck, we have gotta get outta here," Dean announced, spurred to action. He got up and used a meat hook to bang on the freezer door. "Help! We're in here! Get us out! Help!"

To Dean's surprise, it worked. The stock boy appeared holding a bandage to his bleeding forehead and grimacing as he got a look at them. "Are you guys okay?"

Dean had already grabbed Sam up and gotten him half-walking with him out of the freezer. "Fine. Cops here yet?"

"No. Soon."

Dean picked up the pace. They stumbled through the store. Sam mumbled he couldn't really feel his legs as he fell to his knees when the curb dropped down to the parking lot.

Dean got him loaded into the Impala and they peeled off for the closest motel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please kudos+comment if you've got a second. If you're not sure what to comment, even the simplest contented emoji is tremendous but also I can't tell y'all how much I _love_ reading what you're doing/where you're reading my fic. It blows my mind sometimes to learn how my writings have been a part of your day. 
> 
> All my love! ~ Alex


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter of this story! Whumptober filled prompts are No 21. Hypothermia & No 22. Withdrawal 🥺️ featuring angsty!Sam and snuggly!Dean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whumptober 2020 prompts filled here are No 21. “Hypothermia” and No 22. “Withdrawal.”
> 
> Tumblr link.

Dean hunched over the wheel, hands gripping it tight at ten and two, knuckles whitening as he tried to suppress the shivers wracking his body. Sam was still so cold he hadn't started shaking yet. He was lethargic, slumped against the passenger door and mumbling incoherent strings of words. Dean couldn't forget Sam was withdrawing too. The heat blasted through the vents. Dean drove, eyes wide and desperate for lodgings.

The convenience store they'd been held up in had been on a frontage road parallel to the highway. He cursed the long local street, his side of it holding nothing but Pennsylvania wilderness now, interspersed with gravel driveways leading to decent two-story houses. It was empty of traffic. He'd probably need to get onto the highway before he could find a place to stay.

He glanced at Sam. His brother had closed his eyes, his mouth hanging open.

"Sam? Sammy!?" Dean shook him, grabbed his arm and Sam sleepily came back to life.

"Yeah here, jeez," Sam wheezed as Dean kept shaking him. "Dean, okay!"

"Stay awake," Dean ordered roughly. He was so worried about Sam, still holding Sam's arm that he almost missed the wide driveway of "Osa Motel and Campgrounds."

Dean slammed on the brakes and twisted the wheel, making Sam lean then fall into his lap. The Osa general store parking spaces were right there so Dean pulled up and took the opportunity to feel Sam's forehead. Still ice cold. Sam moaned and curled up.

"Gonna get a cabin, Sammy, be right back," Dean promised. He slipped out from under Sam, making sure his head landed carefully.

The general store was a godsend. Dean paid for the closest cabin and several heat packs. He explained to the manager, Achak, a middle-aged Native American man with intelligent, curious dark eyes that he and his brother were just getting back from a bad camping trip and needed to rest and recuperate from the elements. Achak gave Dean a knowing and sympathetic nod before coming around the counter. He handed Dean the key and went outside with him, confirming Dean's story with a glance at Sam sort of sleeping in the front seat of the Impala. He pointed at the traditional log building that was theirs.

They busted into the spacious one-room cabin, Sam draped over Dean and stumbling. Dean dropped him onto the closest bed, found the heater under a window sill and turned it all the way up, came back and started in on Sam's shirts, wet from the freezer's ice that melted on the way here. Once Sam was bare-chested, Dean used towels to pat him down, then the heat packs against his neck, under the arms. He used both sides of the blanket to wrap Sam's upper half like a burrito. Next Sam's shoes and socks, his wet jeans and boxers had to go. Same routine. Towel pat-downs, warm packs along his groin, under his knees, then he went and got all the blankets from the second bed and made a mountain so thick and warm on top of Sam Dean was honestly ready to get under there and pass out too.

He thought to get a hand towel and wrap it around Sam's damp-cold hair. Sam seemed to wake up for that, probably from Dean jostling his head.

"Dean, it's okay. I can die, I'll jus' come back," Sam stuttered and slurred.

"You're not gonna die again, Sam," Dean yelled, cupping Sam's face, tried to get his little brother to look at him. "We're gonna get you warm, Sammy. Me too, for that matter," he added as he started to undress. Sam watched him, eyes glazed, pupils blown out wide though.

Dean left his boxers on before burrowing in and unceremoniously draping himself over Sam.

"Oh fuck you're so cold," Dean exclaimed.

"Just let me die," Sam laughed blearily and Dean glanced down and let the relief wash over him at the sight of those dimples. He chuckled and arranged the covers more while Sam yelped and fumbled under him, weakly resisting Dean's closeness.

"Shh stop, stop Sammy," Dean whispered and Sam stilled. "You know the drill. You're coming out of it. You're gonna start shaking real bad and skin-to-skin is the best fastest way to get this over with," Dean explained softly as he maneuvered Sam around so they were on their sides and chest to chest.

"Y-y-you'll hol' m-m-"

"Shh, yeah," Dean agreed, aligning himself along Sam's block of ice body, clamping his legs and arms around him. "I'll hold you, I got you."

Sam started whimpering, the feeling coming back into his limbs, his shakes turning to spasms. "Dean," he cried against his brother's bare chest. "This is..."

"I know it's bad, Sammy. I know," Dean soothed. "Don't talk, just... c'mon." He rubbed Sam's back and got him to snug in closer against him.

"Dean..." Sam breathed into his brother's neck.

"Your hair smells like that shawarma we had yesterday," Dean whispered. "Could really go for that right now."

Sam gasped and whimpered, clutched onto Dean harder.

"It's okay, it's okay, Sammy. How's the withdrawal?"

"Feels like my heart's beating out of its chest," Sam replied, his breath punching out on every word. "My ribs are gonna crack. My head wants to explode."

Dean's heart ached. "Okay, stay with me though, okay?"

"Okay," Sam cried, burying his head into Dean's neck. "I'm sorry."

"What? For what?" Dean asked, confused.

"I don't know," Sam sobbed and Dean recognized Sam wasn't really thinking anymore. "I'm just... It hurts so much, I'm so sorry Dean."

"It's okay, Sammy."

"I love you. I love you so much. I hate dying."

Dean squeezed his eyes shut. "Shhhh. You're not dying, Sammy, nobody's dying."

"Feels like it," Sam wept. Dean shuddered for his brother because apparently Sam _did_ know how it felt to die.

"Sammy, you're alive, you're just hypothermic and withdrawing from demon blood. We're getting through it," Dean coached, smelling Sam's shawarma hair again. "We'll get through it and then we'll find some middle eastern or Thai, or uh... sushi, I know you like sushi," Dean trailed off, not even knowing what he was saying anymore.

Sam spasmed and jack-knifed against him, nearly tagging Dean in the nads and Dean was just about to scold him for it when Sam fell out of bed. 

"Sam!" Sam let out a blood-curdling scream. It stopped abruptly like someone had cut his vocal chords and Dean gasped as he watched his brother's body vault up against the bumpy logs of the wall. He was held up suspended by nothing, arms wide and fingers scrabbling for purchase, his face a rictus of pain. It was a replay of what Dean had seen in the panic room last year when he'd locked Sam up to detox.

"Sam!" Dean roared, launching up and getting his arms around him, trying to pull his little brother down from the supernatural throes the demon blood had pinning him.

For too long Sam was stuck to the wall, his back unnaturally glued to it as he jerked and writhed, tried to get free, trying to reach his big brother.

"Dean," he begged, tears streaming down his face. "Please."

Finally whatever was holding Sam let go and he collapsed into his brother, kitten-weak but clinging. Dean hefted him up. "Okay back into bed, come on. Come on, Sammy," he spoke, his voice cracking. It had scared him to see Sam like this in the panic room last year and it still scared him now. But this time he wasn't leaving.

He got Sam onto the bed. Sam curled up and rolled over, heaving in agony. Dean picked all their blankets back up and draped them over him before climbing in and wrapping himself around Sam's back. "I'm not leaving you, Sammy, stay with me. You in there?" He squeezed his brother with his arms and legs. Sam jerked.

"Y-yeah."

"You feel me?" Dean moved to press a palm against Sam's chest, over the anti-possession tattoos they booth wore, over his heart. "I've got you. We'll get through this, Sammy, listen to me, okay?"

Sam put his hand over Dean's and went silent. They were quiet for awhile but then Sam's body shuddered like he'd just woken up. His shoulders started to shake, and finally Dean heard a wet gasp. "I can't do this. I can't even fall asleep right now because I'm so.... Lucifer's waiting for me. I can't do this anymore. Dean," he said his brother's name like a plea. 

"He's not gonna come this time," Dean lied.

"You don't know, you can't know that," Sam objected, tone pitchy with indignity.

Dean gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut for some kind of solution.

"Cas! We'll call Cas, Sammy. If anyone can figure out how to keep an archangel out of your dreams it's gonna be him."

Sam might've whispered 'okay' but Dean didn't press it. He was warming up but the withdrawal was giving him the same kind of tremors anyway. Hallucinations might come into play too, Dean knew. He leaned his forehead against the nape of Sam's neck and prayed aloud.

"Castiel, please hear me. We're in a bad way and we need your help. Please come to us, Cas, please. Osa Motel and Campgrounds in Pennsylvania."

They waited with Dean clamped strong around his naked, detoxing little brother. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew Sam was almost over the hypothermia. The heat packs now strewn around under the covers as well as the blankets could finish warming him up. Dean could get out and sit by Sam's side or something now as he came down. And yet.

Dean kept his arms around his brother. Maybe it was because this time Sam had been forced to drink blood against his will or maybe it was because Sam was so apathetic with his own suffering in the walk-in freezer. Dean's thoughts danced around the truth though, something that struck him every time he thought about how Sam had lost count of how many times he'd offed himself. What were the last things Dean had said to Sam those times?

Dean wasn't an idiot; he knew Sam really only had him. This was destabilizing for Dean too though. He thought Sam was safe for now, but instead Sam could've taken his own life after they'd had a good laugh at the bar last week, or after a successful hunt a few days ago, the two hours Sam had been at the library before they hit up the shawarma place yesterday...

When and how had he been hurting himself with Dean none the wiser the whole time? And what if he'd succeeded with any one of them? Cold dread seeped through him at the thought. Sam would've died and Dean would've been the one to find the body. He'd be the one trying to eke out the rest of his life knowing Sammy had saved the world just by successfully killing himself.

So no, Dean kept a hold of his brother, his body warm now, shaking, slicked with sweat, his skin unmarred except from scars that Dean knew every story to. The living, breathing reminder that he still had his brother, broken and tortured but still calling his name when he was hurt, still so desperately wanting Dean's approval and love and trust.

"It's true, he does," a gravelly voice intoned, surprising Dean. He rolled away from Sam onto his back to find Castiel hovering over them.

"Cas," he breathed. He couldn't be bothered the angel had been following his thoughts. In all fairness he hadn't thought to say 'end prayer' or anything since praying to him. "Lucifer can reach Sam in his dreams. Can you stop it?"

Sam shifted weakly, moving just enough to get on his stomach and look over, eyes puffy and wet and glazed but mildly focused on the two of them.

Cas's expression was empathetic sorrow. He nodded. "I can. I will ward the cabin."

Cas vanished. Sam scooted closer to Dean inch by inch until Dean noticed and helped to get Sam resting along his side, head cushioned on his shoulder, shallow wheezy breaths against his neck.

"You'll be able to sleep soon now. Just hold on, okay?" Dean murmured. Sam sniffed and nodded. "We're gonna talk about it again later but Sam, I want to make a new rule. No dying alone anymore, you understand me?"

"We all die alone," Sam rasped.

"Not you, not when you've got me. I understand why you decided to try it, why you're still trying. I actually don't think it's a half bad idea but... we figure out a way to die permanently, we stay together," Dean paused, deciding he wouldn't go into how he'd want to die too. "And we just... go from there. Okay? Sammy?"

Sam latched onto his shoulder and tucked into him more. "Yeah, okay. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. We'll get through this," Dean reassured, calm and controlled.

Sam didn't let go of his brother even after he cried himself into a dreamless sleep. Dean followed soon after, relieved Sam was out of conscious misery and in dire need of rest himself.

Castiel bid them farewell too but not before stocking the fridge in the cabin, something Dean discovered the next morning with such immense gratitude he actually prayed to the angel again just to thank him.

Sam woke up dizzy and disoriented around two in the afternoon while Dean was putting clothes on him. He was still so out of it he wasn't embarrassed but he wasn't in pain and Dean counted that a huge improvement. Sam couldn't remember anything past the walk-in freezer so they would have to revisit what Dean had said before but that was okay. Sam wasn't getting out of Dean's sight any time soon which was going to settle his nerves about Sam's secret opt-outs. And Sam had confessed so much that'd been eating away at him. Dean could tell their stay here, just the two of them at this warded cabin hashing things out, was going to heal them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, we bring this fic to a close 😊
> 
> Thank you for reading. Please let me know if you enjoyed with that kudos button and/or a comment! 
> 
> To see what the last 9 days of Whumptober are gonna look like for me, you can visit my tumblr post [here with a few details](https://fogsrollingin.tumblr.com/post/632555910098796544/11-days-until-the-end-of-october-omgosh-you-guys). Fingers crossed I can get everything done in time. I'm really cutting things close 😵
> 
> Also if you've read my fic "in this house" (the story right before this one in my Sam Whumpchester series), I need to share MidnightSilver's incredible artwork that [they posted yesterday](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27140041) inspired by it. It's just like, I'm speechless. Silver is a g i f t.
> 
> Thank you again for reading! Have a lovely evening (new SPN episode woo!!!) xoxo Alex


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